SUBSTITUTIONS

by Walter Agnew Moore II, Roving Correspondent

21 May 2001, Austin, Texas

My back is still sore this next morning from being the Big Hero the night before and riding (DeWiebl) around on my shoulders 10 feet off the ground, but that's the price you pay for a memory. I am back over at her place waiting for the coffee to kick in, waiting for her folks to show up from Houston, waiting for her to pack, waiting for her to leave town. I brought some CDs over to listen to, Son Volt, Old 97's, the Mindy Sparks soundtrack, Steve Earle.

World War Two vintage planes circle overhead. (DeWiebl) shuffles about doing last-minute laundry.

The parents show up in a big truck. I introduce myself as the guy who's there to grunt and lift heavy objects.

There is an immediate squabble about boxes, rain, tarps, and a lunch appointment that translates into English as "We don't get anything done". For honor's sake, I help (DeWiebl)'s mom carry a trundle-bed down the stairs. Then we all perch on the landing and chat a bit. (DeWiebl)'s dad asks me how I know his child.

(DeWiebl) says, "He was my French teacher. And now we're friends."

(DeWiebl)'s dad says, "Oh...that French teacher from Alabama... from Alabama..."

Her mom jumps in with, "Lots of people speak French over in Alabama," (we do?) but I am mostly just quiet and alert. I tell him I am working on Linguistics, French, and Spanish Linguistics.

He smiles, "Oh yes, I always thought it would be nice to be a Cunning Linguist."

They have to get ready to eat lunch with a professor. (DeWiebl) hugs me and says she'll see me before she leaves for good. I know I won't see her again. I take most of my CDs, but I give her El Corazon.

I eat alone at the Red River Cafe — but I'm never alone when I eat there — it is a little dive two blocks from my house where the coffee is limitless and the pack of waiters remember you and swap hangover jokes. Booths. Climbing plants. Newspapers. Hot greasy food. A cozy cave.

I hear a voice in the line at the register and half-turn to see (NovemberGirl). I say "hi" before I stop myself. She looks through me. I don't see her fiancée in line with her. It's some other guy.

I have a graduation party to go to, out in the Hill Country. The first time I traveled this road, it was for a "welcome to Austin" party. Today it's (BikerGirl)'s chance to go out in style.

Amazing house that (BikerGirl)'s friends have. Horses. Live-Oaks, a pool, picnic tables set up on the cool lush grass. Interesting group of people, (BikerGirl)'s huge family down from Wisconsin, people from other countries too, like Mexico and Ukraine and Manhattan.

I get (Manhattan) all worked up by something I said about a Greek restaurant, and she's all, "You better watch it, I'm half Greek!" "Yeah, well what's the other half, Turkish?" and it is on. But we understand each other, and it stays friendly. Verbal thumb-wrestling. She's never been to Alabama and seems curious about it like someone looking at a dead animal on the side of the road. I tell her it's America's Sicily: If you have friends or family, you have a great time. If not...

(BikerGirl)'s dad starts popping off comments about Alabama red-necks this, red-necks that. Now, I'm no great defender of the Salt of the Earth that is the Good Ole Boy, but at the same time I can assure you I don't need a lecture about red-necks from a guy who missed the casting-call for "Fargo". But one must be polite at these garden parties, so I just tell him that the preferred term is "Scotch-Irish".

Later, dad and I talk cattle, and we bond. I want to know if "black leg" is the same thing as anthrax. Black leg is the reason why I grew up as an electrician's son in Alabama rather than as a cattle-baron's great-grandson in Florida. Dad doesn't know, but "Anthrax to me is what they're brewin' up in Iraq." Yeah, I know about anthrax shots.

(BikerGirl) has found some mistletoe in the woods and is running around causing giggles with it. Then she gets bored and sticks it in her back pocket. She is standing with her back to me so I say:: "(BikerGirl), is that mistletoe placement indicative of your new attitude towards the world?"

(Rooskie) laughs, "Ha Ha, is 'kiss my ass', is very subtle, Walterr."

(BikerGirl)'s mom asks me if I check out all my former students, and the honest thing to say, would be "No, just the ones who have great asses like your daughter," but honesty and long life are sometimes at odds, so I start talking about that local sports team instead.

I eventually escape.

(Peppermint) left a message on my machine, so I tag her back and for once reach her. She's our new drummer, the one we got after (LooseCannon) ran off to Hawaii. She's good, but something has made her miss the last two practices.

There's a reason: Her girlfriend tried to commit suicide. Twice. (Peppermint) has been smacked upside the head by a big old slice of Real Life. I know she wants me to say it, so I do:

"I understand if you can't play that show at the Posse on the 8th."

She is relieved. Sorry to see (Peppermint) go, but this whole situation is going to result in her having to leave town for a while. Now we look for a third drummer.

The Prom isn't until 10 pm. I have time to kill. I put out phone messages to (BabyJohnny) and (Cuchullain), telling them to find me a drummer ASAP. Practice my guitar parts a little. Damn voice is still clogged up Dylan-style from allergies, which is not the sound I want. I get my jacket ready for the Prom — my old Dress-Blue Army jacket with shoulder boards and what-not — looks very 19th century cavalry.

I'm hungry. Go eat at the Posse, stroll up to the Crown and Anchor. (Joyce) and (Sleeves) and (Cobra) are there with (Eyeballs) and (Nosy). I sit down with them and recount the traumas of shepherding a pack of 20-year-old little boys the night before.

"So why were you hanging with 20-year-old-boys?" asks (Eyeballs). I tell her, "Because they were hanging out with a 20-year-old woman".

Then (Bodacious) shows up and wiggles in next to me and starts speaking to me in French. I don't remember ever seeing her before. She looks like Jello mixed with Sex poured into a green dress. She has been asking (Sleeves) about me. She says the first phrase she ever learned in France was, "Bring me the hand-cuffs and fuck me in the ass."

The conversation at the table has gotten around to that subject of "what ARE you", which I always find tedious because most people don't really know jack about their own families, and then they try to pick out "interesting" ethnic groups to be from. Everybody is part something, but I just lean back and see four European types and two Indian types at the table.

When it's my turn I tell them I'm mostly Manx with a little Great Dane. (Bodacious) is still laughing when I get out the door.

I really need to find (Cuchullain), but he's not at the Showdown. (The Witch) is. I tell her about the Dress-Blue Army jacket, and she tells me to be careful. Outside they are shooting off fire-works in the direction of campus, the last bombardment goes off as I walk through the back patio. Reminds me of M-60 tracers shooting across a field hitting metal. I used to see those tracers every night for years when I would go to sleep.

I walk into Nasty's wearing the Dress-Blue Army jacket, the benefit prom for KOOP radio has been going for a little while. Very noisy. The small square bar is full of people from a 1980's brat-pack movie. The Psychedelic Furs are playing "Pretty in Pink". (MotorCity) takes one look at me and bitches me out because I wore jeans and boots with the jacket instead of the entire uniform. I tell her she looks nice, and she gives me glitter. It is a relief to see (Pimp) and (Calm) come in, so they are together after all.

There is a three-piece band called "Port Vale" throbbing out rock in between 80's records. They have it down tight. If only they had somebody write them some more varied material, they'd go far. I sit there and try to figure out their story. They all three look enough alike to be cousins, three short slim little guys with Cracow Ghetto facial features. I see them getting together in 9th grade and doing their first gig down at the Jewish Community Center in Houston, supportive loving parents trying not to wince at the volume. I used to see the same scene in Birmingham when I worked with (YogiBear) at those art shows.

I'm talking to a guy when a person who has to be (RockerGirl)'s brother walks up. It is an uncanny likeness. I say so. He comes back with a German accent, "You are saying I look like a girl?"

"No, I mean yes — you look like (RockerGirl), — I mean, like her brother"

"I don't know her brozzer"

"Neither do I, I just thought you might be him, because you look so much like her."

"So you ARE saying I look like a girl?"

Yeah, sure Herman. A big scary girl.

Somehow I escape this moebius strip of a conversation and make the outside patio. I fall in with some of (Pimp)'s radio friends, and we talk about monkeys in France. Turns out if you feed the mama monkeys with little babies holding on to them, they may get threatened and "pousse un cri", literally, push a cry, let out a yelp, and then 900 monkeys from the entire compound come whale hell out of you. The first time I fed popcorn to the mama monkey, she was fine, but the French guy working monkey-control came up and asked me if I was German. Later on I figured that he said that because I am tall, and I obviously hadn't understood the warning in French about the mama monkeys poussing un cri.

But at the time, all I came up with was: "Am I German? What the hell difference does that make to the monkey?"

(MotorCity) is flipping back and forth between snapping at me and being nice to me. She is saying enigmatic things like, "You may think I'm from Detroit, but I am actually from South Carolina." The possible significance of that goes right over my head. She tells me about getting arrested at anti-nuke rallies with nuns and hookers. The nuns were at the rally, the hookers were already at the jail. She is using my jacket pockets to store her cigarettes money and matches, but she knows I will not take off with them because I am a "Southern Gentleman." (A cajun redneck german monkey-feeding gentleman. Stereotypes are nifty.)

God, but we are getting soused. Every girl I talk to, (Pimp) comes by and says "So, (girl's name), I see you're getting lucky tonight, you have met Walter." It is rather disconcerting, but that's just (Pimp). As the Prom shuts down, (Pimp) tells everybody to drop by his place, he has more liquor. Me and (MotorCity) cut off to Kerbey Lane instead for food.

I'm writing her name on a matchbook, it's one of those nice old Hebrew names that can end in an "h", or maybe not. As I'm writing it, she says, "OK, now, here's where we find out how much you know about Jewish culture, Bama-Boy." I know that means there's supposed to be an "h", but I leave it off to jerk her around for trying to "out-jewish" me. Wish I could remember how to quote something from Maimonides, or write the name in Hebrew characters, but Dr. Bar-Adon would say that my mind is a blank slate tonight.

I get eggs instead. Fruit and black beans on the side.

That's when I see (DeWiebl) outside. I sit up, I hope she'll come in. She's walking past the parking lot with some guy. Then I notice how unhappy she is. Painfully miserable. The guy, a little block of burr-headed skater-cool, is talking to her low and mean, while she nods with a rigid smile of fear on her face. That guy needs stomping.

(MotorCity) sees me looking at them and asks what's up. I tersely explain while I put my silverware down.

Then they walk past our window, and close up, it's not (DeWiebl). Instant relief followed by immediate pity for whoever the girl really was.

When we get to (Pimp)'s place, there are still a few hard-core alcoholics there. (MotorCity) mixes up a round of gin-and-tonics that you could run a car with. The crowd thins until it is me and (Pimp) talking about Jimmy Corrigan and Daniel Clowes and how UT may THINK they had me on a work-for-hire cartoonist gig, but I never signed any contract, and copyright law says... (Calm) zonks on (Pimp)'s bed, and (Pimp) gets (MotorCity) set up in the guest room.

I ask for a pillow and some floor space, and (Pimp) puts me in the guest room too. She's up in the bed, I'm down on the floor with the cat, if you look at the ceiling you can see glowing stars. We joke about constellations.

I say: "Do you think (Pimp) could be trying to hook us up any harder than this?"

She says: "Well, it's not going to happen. It would take mutual effort."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, nothing against you, it's just that I am coming out of a bad relationship and —"

"You mean that guy you moved down here from Detroit with, the one who was supposed to come to that last party but who took off and left you without a car?"

"How did you know all that?"

(Maybe because I'm a genius. Because I'm a psychic. Because women have always done the exact same things since the beginning of time, and all you change are the names and dates in the stories. Maybe because (Pimp) and I both speak English, and he told me all this stuff) "I don't know. I had a feeling."

"Well, you were right. I just came out of a psycho relationship, so I can't start anything serious with you right now."

"That's OK — I am planning on getting into a psycho relationship soon, so I can't start anything with you either."

There is a chuckle from across the darkness. About a minute goes by.

"You know, there's no reason to stay down on the floor. There's plenty of room in the bed."

My guess is right, that she won't mind at all if I put an arm around her and pull her close. She curls up tight against me, fingers stroking one shoulder while her dark hair covers the other shoulder. She sighs repeatedly, content.

"St. Genevieve
Can hold back the water
But saints don't bother
With a tear-stained eye"

She needed that kiss. We both did. It's not such a bad thing if I see the other girl's face and lips every time I kiss her. There are worse things than stretching out in a comfortable bed with a woman who is happy for a while. We are both much closer to asleep than awake. Lazy. Warm. We murmur each other to sleep with close conversation, old stories.

Her grandmother was born on the Cumberland River. The tribe disowned her when she married the Irishman. She and the Irishman fought for 60, 65 years, as long as they were together. The Irishman died. The grandmother got even older, and Alzheimer's set in. She started speaking in Cherokee again.

"Cherokee? I only heard Cherokee once, walking down the street in North Carolina..."

"My grandmother was born in Tennessee, on the other side, on the Cumberland River."

She started speaking Cherokee again, like she had when she was a little girl.

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copyright 2001 Walter Agnew Moore II, lyrics quoted "St. Genevieve..." from "Tear-Stained Eye", copyright 1995 Son Volt.

© Walter Agnew Moore II 2001